That is not a valid intent. The document is a fixed object that has the ability to be amended to. It is the interpretation that is a living thing. You would need those that created the document alive today to say otherwise.
The 10 commandments of the Jews haven't changed in almost 7000 years. The Magna Carta has not changed. The bible has changed because those in power or have broken off from the main course of the bible decided they had the ability to rewrite the bible. But each of those are identified as such.
Also whos decided what principals are moral? Is an eye for an eye just? Or to kill a baby in a mother womb? How about if its 3am on a Sat night and no one is on the road why should you stop at a stop sign? If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there, how do you know it made a noise? Each of these are examples of doctrine, fact, and even quantum physics theory, yet none convey a just reality from the Constitution. Yet we have hundreds of thousands of laws in this country and it is the Supreme Court (of which they use their own belief system) to interpret the Constitution and apply properly.
Don't water down America with this bs of a living document, the current administration has walked all over it, starting with the lie of the President being a born in America citizen.
The ten comandments have not changed, but how we live by them, those of us even with solidly moral lives has. We also dont have camels and goats and "chattel". We have cars houses, family(wives daughters) bank acounts and mortages, so we interpret the intent.
The constitution elucidates principles, just as the 10 comansments do, these are interpeted as universal truths seen through the lens of contemporary social realities, this interpretation is done by the suprmee court. Now we may have issue with how far these interpretations go, and judge others like gun laws as not going far enough, but the decsions are stil based on these unchanged principles.
The pourpose and existance of the supreme court is to interpet the constitution, ie make decsions in contermprary times based on the principles in the constitution, that is why it was set up. As an example, we all know murder is wrong, its a universal truth. Yet we also know that if a man kills someone molesting his child we dont put them away. Courts interpret. The constitution is silent on this exact subject.
The Magna carta has not changed, its lets say a core document in the UK. But there is also a core principle of precedent in engish legal code. English legal code is built on precedent. The Magna Carta starts as the core principle and precenndent evolves that principle for specific situations the origional writers could not have imagined.
The founding fathers saw certain universal truths to be self evident. Those were core principles. As an example if we are free from unlawful search and seizure, what is the governement doing spying on us. A strict constitutionalist would say there were no phones then or e-mail, so those things are free game as they are not mentioned in the constitution. Interpreting the constitution and its principles would and does tell me that the gov has no buisness spying on citizens, or for that matter seizing assets to coerce legal outcomes as it does. Only with the backingof the constitution and the supreme court can we control and wind these excesses back. Point is its a two way street, and we get good with bad in the supreme court.
Even with its faults the constitution interpeted by the supreme court is the best system by far, and if we did not have that, we would be in a central gov contralled state with no states rights long ago. What we need to do is use the constitution and the court to get our rights back.
Yes there is a political connection, but going on about abortion, or imigration, or gay rights looses elections, and frankly if gov should not be involved in our lives its a two way street. I would rather economicaly save the country, and have somethign for my chilldren than lose an election over social issues the gov has no buisness being involved in anyway. If you dont like abortions, then that is between you and your family, we cant dictate how other people live if it does not materialy affect us, and thta sia two way street too..
Plus I like to work withing plausible relaity, we are not turning back the clock. The constitution has been interpreted a100.000 ways if not more. I prefer to use the sprit of the docuemt to hold the hand to the fire. Like the 2nd is sarcosanct, like on what basis is there income tax and a whole host of other things.
As to living with larger morals, this is for us to teach our chilldren and family. Its not for the governemnt to impose on society, other than to the extent imoral behaviour affects us all. Frankly what gays do, what other women do is their buisness. If my and my families moral code is unable to handle that, then I will question the strength of what I teach. We have no buisness inviting gov into out lives to regulate them, just because we dont like what someone else does, and thats a two way street applicable to libs and conservatives.
Right now each side wants to pick and chgoose where gov is and is not involved, this picking and choosing is contradictory. I prefer to operate on principles. The first being gov has no buisness regulating individual behaviour where is causes no appreciable harm to others. I say this because we all have the right to freedom liberty and happyness, how we interpret these things is not for others to say, unless our interpretation directly affetcs others. And yes I am prepared to be offended by some behaviour because offence does not rise to the level of harm and we must be tolerant, just as others must be tolerant of us. Oyur flaw as a society is we are loosing our tolerance with each sode dictating.
I also think as we see in these threads thta there are two boradly dofferent outlooks in this country, with a few rationalists liek myself in the middle. It behooves ups from the dofferent outlooks to accept and tolerrate the other views as they are out brothers in this great nation. The failure to do so leads to things like secession plans in colorado where alib "majority" is disregarding the views of 47% and dictaing, in other states its the other way around. What we need is acceptance and tolerance. the founding fathers also had very different views, but they found ways to incorporate and work together.
